While Aer Rianta does need to be overhauled, Mr Brennan's scheme is not the way to reform the State company, writes Róisín Shortall
A year ago Minister Séamus Brennan announced the break-up of Aer Rianta into three separate companies, the Dublin, Cork and Shannon airport companies or authorities.
It was at the time patently obvious to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of company law that the Minister could not readily secure his objective, in law a demerger. Eventually the penny dropped with the Minister and his officials.
Consultants were appointed - accountants PwC on the financial front and solicitors MOP on the legal side.
Financial advisers to the trade unions, accounting firms Mazars and Farrell Grant Sparks, have examined the PwC papers and have commented remarkably on those papers. PwC did not do any due diligence or audit of Aer Rianta.
The papers do not present a business case for the Minister's break-up plan, nor do they constitute a business plan.
They do not, either, present a valuation of the group's businesses and the consultants do not express any opinion on the financial viability of Cork or Shannon.
They recognise and then apparently simply assume away necessary changes in the legal and regulatory environment if the Minister for Transport is to have his way.
Staggeringly, according to the unions' advisers, most of the directors of Aer Rianta, who under company law have their own onerous and important responsibilities, were apparently kept in the dark by the Minister and the Department until the last minute - which is to say last Friday.
So, the PwC working papers do not constitute an expert professional advice to the Minister or the Department.
In reality the Minister is acting or proposing to act in respect of hugely important and valuable State assets and businesses on nothing more than a prejudice.
The result is that his plans could leave seriously damaged already weakened crucial businesses - the State's public airports and the international arm of Aer Rianta.
Furthermore, it appears that Shannon on its own is unlikely to be able to survive without a gift, a so-called equity investment, of up to €30 million from Dublin Airport, the legally questionable (under State-aid rules) gifting of somewhere between €6-10 million a year in rent roll from the Shannon industrial estate, which amounts to a capital equivalent of around €100 million, and the writing off of all debts as well as significant job losses and wage cuts.
Even with such largesse and cost-cutting, there is still a doubt about whether Shannon can survive long term on its own.
PwC's working papers present five separate scenarios for Shannon, most of them prepared by a group led by the chairman designate of the proposed Shannon company and all of them seriously problematic in one way or another.
In addition, it appears that a stand-alone Cork company can succeed only if Dublin takes on the ownership of the Cork Airport itself, leasing it back to the Cork Airport company for a minimal sum of €4 million a year.
Further, Dublin will also be required to supply to Cork necessary management and administrative resources to further reduce the cost base of the proposed Cork company.
Under the Minister's current proposals Cork is no more than a shadow company as indeed is Shannon, both to be kept alive by Dublin.
To pay for all of this, all airport investment would have to be frozen until 2008 - apart from the building of Pier D in Dublin. Dublin also might have to apply to almost double its landing charges - by anything between €2.50 to €4 - on a current rate of €5.29.
But Dublin cannot do this without the sanction of the Regulator, the CAR. And as the law stands now the CAR cannot sanction such a proposed increase, indeed would in law have to reject any such application from the Dublin Airport authority.
All of this leaves any decision to proceed with the Minister's proposal seriously exposed to legal challenge, the judicial review of the Government decision - if it makes such a decision - at the request of any relevant party (an employee, a director, a bondholder, the banks or any other stakeholder in the group) on grounds of damage to their legitimate interests, contractual under the law or otherwise, and lack of transparent, objective decision-making on the part of the Minister and his officials and the Government.
Aer Rianta badly needs to be overhauled, its cost base needs to be tackled, but this is not the way to achieve reform at the State company and return it to financial health.
It is time to abandon the Minister's lunatic and prejudiced plan.
Róisín Shortall is Labour Party spokeswoman on transport